I was quite full of wonder after my brief visit to Moscow to the Lumiere Gallery.

I hadn’t expected that so many people were still able to walk slowly and speak gently, to look into your eyes and even to listen to you without meddling with their iphones right in front of your face. I’m speaking of the visitors to the exhibition and to my gig there.

The exhibition Time of the Bells is a VERY GOOD one. Thank you to Nastya and all other organisers behind the scenes.

Meanwhile the DEREVO studio in Dresden has been turned into a filming location. A motion picture in progress is:

The guitarist Igor Timofeev thinks that the videoclip “Zvezda” (The star) comprises all the ideas of the motion picture and thus the shooting is over…

Leonid Leikin thinks there’s a series to be filmed and in particular from the starting point of Episode 3. ..

Anyway, the work goes on.

In following we offer you the video “Zvezda”, one significant photo and the long text which explains its significance.

Please, don’t get me wrong. A new thing is a new thing. An old one is old.

A thing comes cold to the world. Then it meets its first human being, takes a part of their warmth, their soul. Then it happens again and again.

Coloured by people’s love, a thing starts glistening, the circle of its admirers expands.

Both a human and a thing may have quarrels, divorces, picnics, weddings and crimes. A thing can run away from home, have an affair. A thing can punish or even kill. Don’t get me wrong.

There are living things and there are dead things. Just like people. But dead man is usually buried while a dead thing persists in the world until it is physically decayed .

A living thing has always been a part of a man’s destiny. Whether it was a car or a salt cellar. In the beginning of 70’s people started to sing sad songs. Weariness and the Lack of Faith have been summoned by the sounds of those ballads:lack of Faith in many things, including one’s own work. Why must one produce a good thing? Who will see the difference?

China, cold-blooded and faceless, loaded us with so many dead things. Particularly mean is the fact that they were the copies of the real things, an in each and every one of them there was a little man with his hard moustache and sly eyes, laughing…

Musical instruments have endured the longest…

I’m constantly in search of old guitars, trying to keep or to extend their life. I know there will come a day when there will be not a single old guitar leftin the world. But until then…

Hofner Congress comes from the 50’s . Pretty low priced it gained not too much respect and could be taken everywhere: to a beach, to a picnic… So just very few of them survived.

The classified ad attracted me by its brevity and a kind of timidity: “An old guitar for sale”. Full stop. And just one photo with an old wrapping in front. It seemed to me that the owner didn’t want to approach any nearer to it. The price was plainly invented: 100 Euro. By its shape I guessed it would be a Hofner. I’ve got a confirmation on the phone later. He also said that the guitar was hanging on the wall for 40 years. We made an appointment.

At night in the hallway of his house somewhere in Bavaria I asked him if he knows that his guitars actually would cost much more.

“It’s possible”, he said, “but it doesn’t matter now”.

He didn’t put the hundred Euro into his pocket, just kept trying to get rid of the banknotes.
We had to co-operate to put the old wrapping on. The guitar didn’t want to fit in. I asked him if he plays at all. He answered rather loud, as if it was for someone else.

“No. My father wanted me to, so he gave it to me”, then he corrected himself, “well, he bought it for me”.

He really wanted me to leave. I wanted the same.

In the car I had to open the windows, so strong was the foul smell of the wrapping . No, this guitar was not hanging on the wall. It was closed up in a cellar when a small boy has not become a musician. But dreams are dying slowly, so neither father nor the son were capable of parting with this thing.

How it shined when I removed the mould and grime layer. It was actually NEW! Nobody has ever played on it ! Inside I noticed a piece of paper. I’ve pulled it out and sat for a long time not knowing what to do with it. On a crumpled piece of paper there was a child scribble: a boy behind bars (or strings) and an inscription “I mustn’t”.